New, and not so new, gadgets!
Since my contract with Verizon would be up in May, I started looking around at various carriers and their phones during the past several weeks. Due to my location, Verizon does not provide EVDO coverage until I drive approximately nine miles south of town. I thought if I were to stay with Verizon, I would be limited to voice and text only plans due to my location. However, after speaking with a sales rep, I was assured this was not the case. Yes, I would not be able to take advantage of MMS messaging but I would be able to have a data connection at my location, albeit a bit slower. After speaking with the sales rep I decided to stick with Verizon and upgrade my old RAZR V3c phone to the new Samsung SCH-i760.
I have only had approximately six (6) hours to play with it but I already love it. Want a wonderful device with Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi 802.11b/g, and of course 1xRTT/EVDO built in. It is also a Wndows Mobile 6 Professional device, although Verizon saw fit to remove the Live integration for some reason, most likely due to their continuous need to profit from their subscribers in every way possible. As I play with my new gadget further, I will post up a more detailed review.
Although I have had it now for quite some time, I never reported on my other interesting gadget I obtained through a deal on eBay. I have always been interested in embedded Linux devices, especially the Sharp Zaurus series of PDA devices. When I first saw a new Sharp Zaurus SL5000 I immediately fell in love with the PDA and its hidden slider keyboard concept. However, I never got around to purchasing one or its upgraded siblings the SL5500 and SL6000. Then I came across an eBay auction for a Sharp Zaurus C860 PDA. Although Sharp discontinued the Zaurus line in the US, they continued to develop the line in Japan for quite some time and came out with a PDA line which resembled tiny convertible tablet notebooks. Here is a picture of the C860.
It is a very hackable device and there is an excellent following on the Internet which is still developing, upgrading and pushing the limits of what these devices are capable of. Although the device only runs a 400MHz processor is is more than capable of playing multimedia files, surfing the Internet, running office suite tasks (i.e. word processing, spreadsheets), developing code, hacking, and even running security audits.
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